"I understand; pray, do not feel it necessary to apologize," said Mr. Wildair, with a slight sneer; "allow me to bid you good night, Mr. Lester, and a pleasant journey to New York to-morrow."
Poor Mr. Lester! There was no use in trying to brave it out under the light of those dark, scornful eyes, and he sneaked from the room with much the same feeling as if he had been kicked out.
There was another profound pause when he was gone. Not an eye there was ready to meet the falcon gaze of their host. Mr. Wildair stepped back a pace, folded his arms over his chest, and looked steadily at them.
"Well, ladies and gentlemen," he said calmly, "who next?"
"Wildair, my dear old fellow," said Dick Curtis, with tears in his eyes, "I—I feel—I feel—I'll be hanged if I know how I feel. It's too bad—it's too darned bad for them to treat you this way, after all you've tried to do for them. It's abominable, it's infernal, it's a shame! I beg your pardon, ladies, for swearing, but its enough to make a saint swear—I'll be shot if it's not!" said Mr. Curtis, looking round with a sort of howl of mingled rage and grief, and then seizing Richmond's hand and shaking it as if it had been a pump-handle.
"And I, too, Curtis," said the honest voice of Captain Arlingford, "am with you there. Mr. Wildair, you must not set us all down for Mr. Lesters."
"The mean little ass!—ought to be kicked from here to sundown!" said Lieutenant Gleason, in a tone of disgust.
"And so ought mother," said Henry, sticking his hands in his pockets and striding up and down in indignation: "and the nasty Lydia Languish Dieaway Reid, a be-scented, be-frizzled, be-flounced stuck-up piece of dry-goods. I wish to gracious the whole of them were kicked to death by hornbugs," said Henry, thrusting his hands to the very bottom of his pockets and glaring defiance round the room.
A low murmur of earnest sympathy came from all present, Miss Harper included; for as Captain Arlingford had joined the opposition party, like certain politicians of the present day, she found it no way difficult to change her tactics and go over to the enemy.
"My friends, I thank you," said Mr. Wildair, in a suppressed voice, as he abruptly turned and walked to the window; "but—you must excuse me, and allow me to leave you for the present. I feel—" he broke off abruptly, wheeled round, and with a brief "good night," was gone.